Mr. Murray said, that he was against the resolution for two reasons, which then struck his mind forcibly. The first was the want of a declared object within the acknowledged cognizance of the House; the other was because he believed it was designed as the groundwork of a very dangerous doctrine, that the House had a right to adjudge, to adopt, or to reject Treaties generally. Had the gentlemen stated the object for which they called for the papers to be an impeachment, or any inquiry into fraud, as a circumstance attending the making of the Treaty, the subject would be presented under an aspect very different from that which it has assumed. He considered a Treaty, constitutionally made, to be the supreme law of the land. The Treaty in view has been negotiated and ratified, he thought, agreeably to the constitution. It has been issued, by the President's proclamation, as an act obligatory upon the United States. If the House mean to go into the merits of that instrument, and the information be called for with that view, he should feel himself bound by the constitution to give it every opposition.
Mr. Baldwin thought the resolution so unexceptionable that he had expected it would have been agreed to without debate. The President has sent the House the Treaty; petitions have come forward on the subject; the House must act in the business. It is yet unaccompanied with any documents to throw light upon it. No person concerned in the negotiation has a seat on the floor of the House; so that no oral information can be expected. Implicit faith was not to be reposed, he imagined, in public officers. It would be unfair to take up the subject naked and unexplained.
Mr. Gallatin said, he should not now enter into the merits of the question, but merely state that pertain powers are delegated by the constitution to Congress. They possess the authority of regulating trade. The Treaty-making power delegated to the Executive may be considered as clashing with that. The question may arise, whether a Treaty made by the President and Senate, containing regulations touching objects delegated to Congress, can be considered binding, without Congress passing laws to carry it into effect. A difference of opinion may exist as to the proper construction of the several articles of the constitution, so as to reconcile those apparently contradictory provisions. But all those questions would occur in future discussions. What is now wanted is information on the subject, to elucidate the different views which may be taken of the Treaty. It must do good to obtain it, and could do no harm to ask for it. If it would be improper to communicate any part of the information on the subject, the President will say so. He had hoped, he said, that the resolution would have passed without objection. He concluded by observing, that the House were the grand inquest of the nation, and that they had the right to call for papers on which to ground an impeachment; but he believed, that if this was intended, it would be proper that the resolution should be predicated upon a declaration of that intention. At present, he did not contemplate the exercise of that right.
Mr. Madison admitted that every proposition, however distantly related to a question on the Treaty, drew from the importance of that subject considerable importance to itself. In a discussion of this subject, he felt strongly the obligation of proceeding with the utmost respect to the decorum and dignity of the House, with a proper delicacy to the other departments of Government, and, at the same time, with fidelity and responsibility for our constituents. The proposition now before the House, he conceived, might be considered as closely connected with this important question. It was to be decided whether the general power of making Treaties supersedes the powers of the House of Representatives, particularly specified in the constitution, so as to take to the Executive all deliberative will, and leave the House only an Executive and ministerial instrumental agency?
Mr. Smith (of South Carolina) said, that he had listened attentively to the reasons advanced in favor of this resolution, and that he had heard nothing to convince him of its propriety. The President and Senate have, by the constitution, the power of making Treaties, and the House have no agency in them, except to make laws necessary to carry them into operation; he considered the House as bound, in common with their fellow-citizens, to do every thing in their power to carry them into full execution. He recognized but one exception to this rule, and that was, when the instrument was clearly unconstitutional. In this case, he remarked, it had not been said that the Treaty was unconstitutional. When the resolution was first brought forward, it had indeed been observed, that the discussion might involve certain constitutional points, and, therefore, the papers called for by the resolution were necessary; but it was obvious, the question of constitutionality should be determined from the face of the instrument, and that a knowledge of the preparatory steps which led to its adoption, could throw no light upon it; that ground was therefore abandoned even by the friends of the resolution, and others were resorted to.
He was surprised that gentlemen who displayed such zeal for the constitution should support a proposition, the tendency of which went indirectly to break down the constitutional limits between the Executive and Legislative Departments. The constitution had assigned to the Executive the business of negotiation with foreign powers; this House can claim no right by the constitution to interfere in such negotiations; every movement of the kind must be considered as an attempt to usurp powers not delegated, and will be resisted by the Executive; for a concession would be a surrender of the powers specially delegated to him, and a violation of his trust. The proposition calls upon the President to lay before the House the instructions given to Mr. Jay, and the correspondence between him and Lord Grenville; and for what purpose? Is this House to negotiate the Treaty over again? Has the constitution made this House a diplomatic body, invested with the powers of negotiation? Is not this House excluded? for, if the maxim that "the expression of one is the exclusion of another," applies to this case, the assignment of the Treaty-making power to the President and Senate, is a manifest exclusion of this House. This call, then, on the President, is an attempt to obtain indirectly what the constitution has expressly assigned to others.
After Mr. S. had sat down, it was moved by Mr. Giles, to take the resolution up in Committee of the Whole for the purpose of more ample discussion.
This motion was agreed to; sixty-one members rising in the affirmative.
The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the resolution.
Mr. Nicholas remarked, that the member from Connecticut, first up, when inquiring for the reason of a call for papers, had suggested two. The one, relating to the merits of the instrument; the other, an inquiry into the conduct of officers concerned. On the latter ground, gentlemen conceded that the House had a right to require the papers, and yet seemed willing to adhere to that, on which they conceived a call could not be, with propriety, grounded, as the one that influenced the conduct of the friends to the resolution. All gentlemen admitted, that the House had the superintendence over the officers of Government, as the grand inquest of the nation; but persisted that the resolution calling for papers, if intended for the purpose of exercising that authority, must be predicated on an expression of the intention.